116 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
116 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
$Id: README,v 1.19 1999/11/26 20:49:28 gram Exp $
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Wiretap is a library that is being developed as a future replacement for
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libpcap, the current standard Unix library for packet capturing. Libpcap
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is great in that it is very platform independent and has a wonderful
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BPF optimizing engine. But it has some shortcomings as well. These
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shortcomings came to a head during the development of Ethereal
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(http://ethereal.zing.org), a packet analyzer. As such, I began developing
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wiretap so that:
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1. The library can easily be amended with new packet filtering objects.
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Libpcap is very TCP/IP-oriented. I want to filter on IPX objects, SNA objects,
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etc. I also want any decent programmer to be able to add new filters to the
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library.
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2. The library can read file formats from many packet-capturing utilities.
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Libpcap only reads Libpcap files.
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3. The library can capture on more than one network interface at a time, and
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save this trace in one file.
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4. Network names can be resolved immediately after a trace and saved in the
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trace file. That way, I can ship a trace of my firewall-protected network to a
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colleague, and he'll see the proper hostnames for the IP addresses in the
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packet capture, even though he doesn't have access to the DNS server behind my
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LAN's firewall.
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5. I want to look into the possibility of compressing packet data when saved
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to a file, like Sniffer.
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6. The packet-filter can be optimized for the host OS. Not all OSes have BPF;
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SunOS has NIT and Solaris has DLPI, which both use the CMU/Stanford
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packet-filter pseudomachine. RMON has another type of packet-filter syntax
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which we could support.
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Wiretap is very good at reading many file formats, as per #2
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above. Wiretap has no filter capability at present; it currently doesn't
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support packet capture, so it wouldn't be useful there, and filtering
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when reading a capture file is done by Ethereal, using a more powerful
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filtering mechanism than that provided by BPF.
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File Formats
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============
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Libpcap
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-------
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The "libpcap" file format was determined by reading the "libpcap" code;
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wiretap reads the "libpcap" file format with its own code, rather than
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using the "libpcap" library's code to read it.
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Sniffer (uncompressed)
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-------
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The Sniffer format is documented in the Sniffer manual. Unfortunately,
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Sniffer manuals tend to document only the format for the Sniffer model
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they document. Token-Ring and ethernet seems to work well, though.
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If you have an ATM Sniffer file, both Guy and Gilbert would be *very*
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interested in receiving a sample. (see 'AUTHORS' file for our e-mail
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addresses).
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LANalyzer
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---------
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The LANalyzer format is available from http://www.novell.com. Search
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their knowledge base for "Trace File Format".
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Network Monitor
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---------------
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Microsoft's Network Monitor file format is supported, at least under
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Ethernet and token-ring. If you have capture files of other datalink
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types, please send them to Guy.
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"snoop"
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-------
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The Solaris 2.x "snoop" program's format is documented in RFC 1761.
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"iptrace"
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---------
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This is the capture program that comes with AIX 3.x and 4.x. AIX 3 uses
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the iptrace 1.0 file format, while AIX4 uses iptrace 2.0. iptrace has
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an undocumented, yet very simple, file format. The interesting thing
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about iptrace is that it will record packets coming in from all network
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interfaces; a single iptrace file can contain multiple datalink types.
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Sniffer Basic (NetXRay)/Windows Sniffer Pro
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-------------------------------------------
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Network Associates' Sniffer Basic (formerly NetXRay from Cinco Networks)
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file format is now supported, at least for Ethernet and token-ring.
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Network Associates' Windows Sniffer Pro appears to use a variant of that
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format; it's supported to the same extent.
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RADCOM WAN/LAN Analyzers
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------------------------
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Olivier Abad has added code to read Ethernet and LAPB captures from
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RADCOM WAN/LAN Analyzers (see http://www.radcom-inc.com/).
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Lucent/Ascend access products
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-----------------------------
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Gerald
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HP-UX nettl
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-----------
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Olivier
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Toshiba ISDN Router
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-------------------
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An under-documented command that the router supports in a telnet session
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is "snoop" (not related to the Solaris "snoop" command). If you give it
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the "dump" option, you'll get a hex dump of all packets across the router
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(except of your own telnet session -- good thinking Toshiba!). You can
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select a certain channel to sniff (LAN, B1, B2, D), but the default is all
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channels. You save this hex dump to disk with 'script' or by 'telnet |
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tee'. Wiretap will read the ASCII hex dump and convert it to binary data.
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Gilbert Ramirez <gram@xiexie.org>
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Guy Harris <guy@alum.mit.edu>
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